Showing posts with label Articles+Release Round Up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Articles+Release Round Up. Show all posts

11 January 2015

RELEASE ROUND UP: 28/12/2014 - 10/01/2015


Since we’ve been away for a little while, this week’s Release Round Up will be covering the last couple of weeks to make sure some great releases don't get lost in the aether. 

Aesop Rock
Cat Food (EP) (Rhymesayers Entertainment)
FFO: Eyedea & Abilities, EI-P, Atmosphere (USA), Smart Rap Music
Listen: Cat Food

Word Wizard Ian Matthias Bavitz, better known as Aesop Rock, the rapper with the largest vocabulary in Hip-Hop, is back with this two track EP. While it's easy to listen to this and call it your "standard" Aesop Rock release, that still puts it at the pinnacle of Hip-Hop. Bavitz spits word play that requires 10 listens or more to be understood over dirty and dark beats produced by Blockhead on Cat Food and Aesop Rock himself on Bugzapper. If you’re an Aesop Rock fan, or at least a fan of smart Hip-Hop that tells stories, then you owe it to yourself to pick up this EP. Especially since these tracks won’t appear on any album.

The Kill
Kill Them… All (Obscene Productions)
FFO: Kataplexis, Insect Warfare, Wormrot
Listen: Album Stream

Fast, furious and absolutely relentless. Grindcore unit The Kill have released the best album of their ferocious career. This is a tight album, everything is honed to razor sharp perfection. The production is cutting and horrifically aggressive allowing the Hell-for-leather speed of this album to show through without becoming a hopeless mess of noise. That is not to say that Kill Them… All (and yes that is a joke on the Metallica album name, previous releases from the group references Napalm Death’s Make Them Suffer in a similar way) is sterile or over produced, this is still a grim basement of a record. This release is violent and frightening in a way few bands still manage to achieve and is a must for Extreme music fans.   

A Skylit Drive
Rise: Ascension (Tragic Hero)
FFO: Issues, Alesana, The World Alive, Acoustic covers of Post-Hardcore songs
Listen: Shadows (Acoustic)


Modern Post-Hardcore outfit A Skylit Drive have with Rise:Ascension have re-imagined their 2013 release Rise as an acoustic album. While it may be questionable to many whether this music, from the poppier side of the Alternative Music sphere, is worth re-recording at all, taking a more acoustic slant to the music does the band a lot of favours. By not putting on the face of a heavier album, the band is able to fully embrace the pop aspects of their sound. Something which really allows the true talents to shine though. This is arguably the interesting version of Rise, as with Genre-buddies Issues, not trying to be heavy seems to be where A Skylit Drive really excel. 

Other Releases
Altars – A Profound Respect For Life (Self-Released)
Cendra – 666 Bastards (Xtreem Music)
Chaos – Violent Redemption (Re-Release) (Transcending Obscurity)
Cry Excess – Amibition Is The Shit (Luxor)
Defaced – Forging The Sanctuary (Rising Nemesis Records)
Delusion Parasitosis – Ingurgitating Intenstinal Rot (New Standard Elite)
Disloyal – Godless (Self Released)
In Legend – Stones At Goliath (Self-Released)
Joshua Radin – Onwards and Sideways (Glass Bead)
Jupiter – History of Genesis (Universal Music Japan)
Ketha - #!%16.7 (Instant Classic)
Nailgun Massacre – Boned, Boxed and Buried (Xtreem Music)
Niburta – ReSet (Self-Released)
No Turning Back – Never Give Up (Take Control Records)
Sans Soleli – A Holy Land Beneath A Godless Sky (Tofu Carnage)
Sata Kaskelottia – Sata Kaskelottia (Inverse Records)
Scarab – Serpents of The Nile (ViciSolum Productions)
Traitor – Delaware Destroyers (Horror Pain Gore Death Productions)
Volahn – Aq'ab'al (Iron Bonehead Productions)
Wasteland – Slava Pakim Ratnicima (Winter Realm Records)
Weight of The Tide – Epilogue (Undergroove)
Witchrist – Vritra (Iron Bonehead Productions)




28 December 2014

RELEASE ROUND UP: 2014


The folks over at LambGoat have put together a huge-ass list of Metal albums that have come out in 2014! It seems pointless to put together a release list for the last two weeks of the year. I mean to be honest, what foolish label would trying and push releases in period of time that their buyer base is almost guaranteed to be drunk?

You can check out the list HERE

21 December 2014

RELEASE ROUND UP: 14/12/2014 - 20/12/2014

Its Teeth

Pulses (EP) (Self-Released)
FFO: Russian Circles, Nine Inch Nails, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions In The Sky

Post-Rock, in recent years, seems to have taken a more bubblegum, sunny day, approach. All in all it’s far too happy and pretty. Its Teeth, solo project of Jacob Belcher of Bastards and Cult Kids fame, in Pulses has captured the darker side of the genre; retaining the ephemeral prettiness of Post-Rock whilst mixing in a lo-fi, electronic grittiness. This release is a breath of fresh air for those who always wished Goodspeed You! Black Emperor had Trent Reznor as a member.

Self-Inflicted Violence

The Sanctimonious Hypocrites Of Reality (Art of Propaganda)
FFO: A Pregnant Light, Deafhevan, Alcest, We Came Out Like Tigers
Listen: Siren

(Post) Black Metal has become a many faceted and versatile beast over the years and UK’s Self-Inflicted Violence are proof of this. Following on from releases such the Dream Pop influenced (if not criminally over-rated) Sunbather and the Punk-Rock and Screamo influenced releases of A Pregnant Light, Self-Inflicted Violence have crafted Black Metal as you may have not heard it before. It is tonally schizophrenic, shifting from light to dark with ease and takes influence form genres un-ashamedly un-Black Metal. Those who favour traditionalism will be indignant at my use of the Black Metal genre when describing this album. Yes the influences of Punk, Shoegaze, 80's Goth Rock and whatever else these guys saw fit to thrown in there often outweigh the pure Black Metal sound, but it would be hard to call this album anything else. Let the traditionalists think what they will. This album is great. 

StarGazer

A Merging to the Boundless (Nuclear War Now!)
FFO: The Chasm, Mitochondrion, Portal, Absu

A Merging to the Boundless is part of the weirder side of Extreme Metal. Whilst early notes may give this album away as straight up Death, anyone actually paying attention will be rewarded with so much more. It mixes in Thrash, Old School Progressive Rock, Jazz Influences and a myriad of other experimentations. This does not, however, undermine that true death metal approach. Forgoing the sterile over-production that may be linked to phrases such as “Experimental Progressive Death Metal”, StarGazer have instead gone for the old standard of Extreme production; murk. This is one that’ll appeal heavily, though no solely, to those who worship at the altar of early 90’s Death Metal. 

Other Releases

Asking AlexandriaLive From Brixton and Beyond (DVD) (Sumerian Records)
Astrakhan - A Tapestry Of Scabs And Skin (EP) (War On Music)
Blindfisted - Blindfist (Polypus)
Consecration -Ephemerality (UKEM)
Detente - Recognize No Authority (REISSUE) (Xtreem)
Ethir Anduin - I magen av svart kaos (Satanath)
Goatvermin/Cult of the Horns - Goatvermin/Cult of the Horns (SPLIT) (Satanath Records)
Hetroertzen - Aon Soph Aur (Lamech Records)
Ill Omen - Remnant Spheres Of Spiritual Equilibrium (REISSUE) (Nuclear War Now!)
Infant Death - Total Hell (Apocalyptic Empire)
Morbosidad - Tortura (EP) (Nuclear War Now!)
Obscyria - Nefarious Sanctuary (Go Fuck Yourself Productions)
Phantom Chemistry - Whiksey Slurs (BettyElm)
Pineal - Smiling Cult (HPGD)
Quietdrive - The Ghost Of What You Used To Be (Self-Released)
Sabhankra - Seers Memoir (Self-Released)
Siege Mentality - Arrest Days (Witch Hunter)
SkyboundDarkfall (We Are Triumphant Records)
Surachai - Form Volume III (Self-Released)
Svartsyn - Nightmarish Sleep (Carnal)
Telsas Revenge - Au Montreal (Self-Release)
The Cinema - Talking In Your Sleep (Self-Released)
The Story Changes - Never In Daydream (EP) (Self-Released)
Threads - All I've Ever Known (Broken Rim)
Zero Down - No Limit To The Evil (Minotauro)

14 December 2014

RELEASE ROUND UP: 7/12/2014 - 13/12/2014


Krimh

Krimhera (Self-Released)
FFO: Decapitated, Rivers of Nihil, Ulcerate

The Ex-Decapitated Drummer and Multi-instrumentalist, known to the world as Krimh, has dropped a shiny new bombshell of technical metal wizardry in this latest release. Krimhera is a great mix of technicality, brutality and progression. A must for anyone who likes their metal fast and tight. If I were Slipknot right now, I’d be kicking myself for not allowing this unfairly talented man into the band.

White Arms of Athena

White Arms of Athena (Prosthetic Records)
FFO: Botch, Thrice, Cave In
Listen: Heavy Sleep 

Not content with being the best version of Between The Buried and Me that doesn't contain Tommy Giles Rogers, White Arms of Athena have taken a massive leap in a new direction on their sophomore, self-titled, release. Now sounding more akin to Thrice meets ambient noodling, White Arms… have released perhaps one of the most off-kilter -core releases of the year. Whilst it might not make you want to flail around your bedroom filled with only the purest teen angst, it will make you ponder: “What the hell is going on? And why do I like it so much?”

Centinex

Redeeming Filth (Agonia Records)
FFO: Entombed, Massacre, Obituary

Old School Death Metal is immortal and Centinex are a testament to that fact. The riffing on this album is pure 90’s Floridian throwback that is well enough executed to make you yearn for those glory days. It is however the vocals that really make this album. The tortured, bestial growls of Alex Hogbom will make even your favourite modern Death Metal vocalists seem tame in comparison. 

Other Releases

Angels & Airwaves - The Dream Walker (To The Stars Records)
Atomic Aggressor – Sights of Suffering (Hells Headbangers Records)
Barrier – Eventide (Self-Released)
Bloodlash – Drowning Amidst The Nebulae (EP) (Inverse)
Cretin – Stranger (Relapse Records)
Cult Of Fire – Čtvrtá Symfonie Ohně (Iron Bonehead Productions)
Death Wolf – III: Östergötland (Century Media)
Deathhammer – Evil Power (Hells Headbangers Records)
Decimation - Reign Of Ungodly Creation (Comatose)
Dimesland – Psychogenic Atrophy (Self-Released)
Dir En Grey – Arche (Firewall Div.)
Emigrate – Silent So Long (Spinefarm)
Encoffination - III - Hear Me, O' Death (Selfmadegod Records)
Exercration – Morbid Dimension (Hells Headbangers Records)
Faith No More – Motherfucker (Single) (Reclamation)
I Fight Dragons – The Near Future (Self-Released)
Jucifer – District of Dystopia (Nomadic Fortress)
Kathaarsys - Describing The Paradox Vol. 1 (Self-Released)
Lynch Mob – Sun Red Sun (Rat Pak Records)
Mesmur – Mesmur (code666)
Nervochaos – The Art of Vengeance (Greyhaze Records)
Pythia – Shadows Of A Broken Past (Golden Axe)
R.E.M. - 7IN-83-88 (CMG)
RAM/Portrait – Under Command (Split) (Metal Blade)
Sifisticator – Death By Zapping (Earthquake Terror Noise)
Taake – Stidens Hus (Dark Essence Records)
Thaw – Earth Ground (Witching Hour)
The Banner – Greying (Good Fight Music)
The Smashing Pumpkins - Monuments to an Elegy (Martha's Music/BMG)
These Arms Are Snakes/The Coathangers – Split 7” (Split) (Suicide Squeeze Records)
Unsacred – False Light (Forcefield Records)
Varathron – Untrodden Corridors of Hades (Agonia Records)
Yes - Like It Is: Live at the Bristol Hippodrome (Frontiers Records)